The Pauper: Chapter 13: The character of power
If the pauper wishes to see changes made by those in power, he must demand it, and demand it without ceasing, until he receives his demand.
Frederick Douglass said that power concedes nothing without a demand.
It does not go out into the streets to seek the welfare of others.
It does not of its own accord retract, and compensate for, its abuses.
It lays in its metal-fenced fortress, with no patience for being bothered.
It will always exist, and will always assert itself irrespective of the social, economic, or political system which lies in place.
It can only either fear or hate you.
The brilliance of the American system is on the fact that it does not insist on electing good people to office; rather, it strives to check and mitigate the abusive tendencies of power, as journalist Chris Hedges so rightly pointed out.
It is sounder to restrain a man in office, than to seek a virtuous one for it.
In this the pauper must understand, that power will never move unless moved. It will never advocate for you; you must advocate for yourself, and hold its feet to the fire.
For men in power are apt to be masters and to be served, not the other way around. And he who waits for power to think of him and act on his behalf, will wait for one thousand years. In the event that power would confer with him, it is not purely to his benefit, and he must understand this.
As aforementioned, being a pauper, in general, renders you with little to no friends.
And the proof is found in time of adversity.
Having no material stake in his society through ownership or control of some means of production or distribution, power will not regard him.
For the pauper only has strength in numbers, materially speaking, and nothing else. This, as said before, is the most inefficient form of power.
For those who court his favor or vote, do so not for his empowerment, but for their political advancement. Power is often in the service of the ambitious, cunning, devious, ruthless, opportunistic, and insecure. It’s adherents constantly jostle with each other for authority and influence, and it is on a constant pursuit of consolidation and self-justification. This is so, because the costs to acquire it, often times entail relationships, moral values, and personal identity.
Power loves a crisis, where men become more compliant to its dictates. But what they fail to understand, is that the insistence on more security is tantamount to their endorsement of power’s growth.
But let not the pauper be misled. He must not think that power is his solution. The solution is not accession to power, but freedom from it.
And where power can do so, it will shrink or lacerate his rights and privileges.
Keeping his distance may not help, given how busybody and arrogant its nature is.
A private citizen cannot define the parameters by which power may hold them in good standing. Power jealously reserves that discretion for itself.
And it will find whatever reason it can to harass and abuse, if it so pleases.
For the man of power, many ends cannot be gained—and gained consistently—through honest means. Therefore, let not the pauper think that just because he believes he has nothing to hide, or is peaceful, or even plays by the rules, that he has nothing to fear.
How wrong!
It is power that decides whether or not it finds you suspicious or deviant or acceptable; and its criteria changes by the day.
The pauper should be intimate with civil disobedience, non-conformity, self-assessment and critical thinking. If he fails to be on guard, he may soon find that he is most susceptible to becoming a monster; in other words, elite control will manipulate him for its purposes, even to the extreme of committing atrocities.
If he denies this possibility, he is already halfway there.
The Germans (slaughter of Jews and other groups)
The Soviets (slaughter of kulaks)
The Kmers (slaughter of the Cambodian populace)
The Americans (the Red Scares, Japanese internment camps, etc.).
All had citizens who claimed personal moral decency but found themselves abetting the monstrous deeds of power against their better moral judgment.
In resistance, the pauper will he realize his dignity, whether his material condition improves or not. Resistance is for the pauper, what political maneuver and assertion of power is for the prince. Both are idiosyncratic. And the pauper must understand that true resistance is not for power, but for freedom and self-determination.
It is not to say that power is inherently evil.
Only, it’s dangerous since it’s applied by sinful man. And since it is easier and more likely to apply power to one’s own destructive ends rather than to the greater good, it is therefore prudent to approach it cautiously, no matter how noble the one who wields it appears.
If the pauper wishes to see changes made by those in power, he must demand it, and demand it without ceasing, until he receives his demand. The trick is to ensure that his support is not granted until wishes are granted. If he’s not willing to be steadfast about his demands, he cannot and should not be taken seriously.
The struggle against power is a never-ending battle. It will test your boundaries and your resolve.
Find my work here on Substack. Don’t forget to follow, so that you never miss a new article when it comes out. In short, I despise the Elite, along with the cultural stagnation, academic conformity, economic chaos, and social decay that they create or facilitate. I aspire to empower and equip the common man with the perspective and mindset to wrest back ownership of his life.